


The Prank War

by TheMeekShallInheritTheTARDIS



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Enjoy the fruits of me procrastinating a whole degree lol, Fluff, Gen, Harry should be a teacher fight me, I am weak for rivalries that turn into romance, Mentions of Death, Teenage Shenanigans, apparently, best friends come in threes, cross-posted on HarryPotterFanfiction.com, i ignored cursed child, pranks galore, they have a prank war, what do you expect from a magical boarding school
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-04 21:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18351899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMeekShallInheritTheTARDIS/pseuds/TheMeekShallInheritTheTARDIS
Summary: Look, let's all just agree that everything, all the time, is Fred Weasley's fault.Because it certainly isn't mine.Jenna May is a name with a big reputation- but this Ravenclaw is hanging up her pranking hat and letting go of her bitter war against Weasley, for reasons unknown to her rival. Let's hope he's cool with that.Spoiler alert:: he isn't cool with that.Fred Weasley (II)/ OC





	1. An Introduction to Genius

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I spend my adult time instead of completing my dissertation.  
> Please enjoy it as much as I have!

  "Now, I want to know exactly who is responsible for this," Professor Flitwick demanded, stood on a table in the common room and staring at each Ravenclaw individually, probably looking for a guilty face in the crowd. He was so tiny he could hardly see over the first row of heads, though over the years that judging stare of his has adapted to weaving around students to find their mark.

I reckon he's been taking lessons from McGonagall.

"Someone with a green thumb?" Dom called sweetly from behind the crowd, leaning on the wall casually. Snickering broke out. I snorted and kept toward the back, avoiding Flitwick's limited amount of sight by sticking behind the taller Ravens.   
"Miss Weasley! There is a reason the Whomping Willow was removed from the school grounds, this is a very serious matter! Where on earth the culprit got a sapling of the tree from is beyond me, but when I find out who did this, I will be making sure they can't bring anything else into this school- you're lucky that the culprit won't be expelled, though it was a close call."   
"Will the tree be taken down Sir?"  
"Yes, Miss Wood, it will. It was a very clever growing charm the culprit used to produce a fully-grown Whomping Willow, but it's a safety hazard and the school decided it's for the best to remove it." Muttering broke out and I stood on my tiptoes. Like Flitwick, it didn't take a lot of people to block my view, but at least I had an extra few feet. I could just about see over the shoulder of the younger girl in front of me.  
"But Sir-" I tried.   
"No buts! Now, if no one is going to own up, I'll be going- if anyone knows anything, speak to me in my office. Now off to class, all of you."

  The Professor left and the students all waited until the door closed before they slowly turned to me. By now, every time something happened, they knew it had something to do with me and usually it had- my nails were still muddy from all that digging. I'm sure the teachers must've known it was me, but, without evidence, what could they do? Layla Cole started laughing.   
"Good one May- where did you even find a Whomping Willow sapling?"  
"Oh, I have my ways. I can't believe they'd take it down though, after all that effort," I sighed. The others nodded.   
"Yeah, I was so pissed when I found out we'd had a Whomping willow; I've wanted to study them up close for years and the Teachers took it down. Did you know there was a secret passage under it but it's been filled in?" A fifth year piped up. Ravenclaws had a knack of finding things like that out, which was why I loved this house.   
"Honestly," I griped. "The teachers take the joy out of everything."   
"Lighten up Jen," Ava smiled. "I'm sure you'll find something else to replace."

She wanted to ask, I could tell; Maybe how I'd smuggled in the Willow, or why I thought putting a murderous tree on the grounds was a good idea- two very different questions, with wildly different answers. The how I could answer.

The why I refused to.

  
"He totally knows it was you," Dom commented breezily, watching as the other students headed to class.   
"Oh definitely," Ava agreed, looking almost disapproving but not quite nailing the expression. I shrugged.   
"He can't prove it."   
"Who else could do something like that?" Dom pointed out.   
"Anyone daring enough," I answered. "So that would give them a huge number of suspects. There's no reason for them to think I had a motive for re-planting the Whomping willow."   
"There wasn't a motive for half the stuff you pulled here, but it was still you," Dom snorted. I shrugged.   
"And yet...never been caught."   
"Almost never," Ava corrected. I let her have that- there were a few times that I did get caught. Only a few though. Compared to how many times I got away with stuff, it's a minority.

  Word spread about the Willow, and the Teachers were still trying to find the culprit, though they had some trouble; no one saw anything, or knew anything, so any suspicions were just that- suspicions. I went about my usual business, dropping in on classes and 'accidentally' releasing the Nifflers that Hagrid had procured for one of his classes into the staff room. It was a fun distraction, a nice break from work.   
Not school work; school work was boring. A break from my extracurricular. Most people liked my random acts of chaos, found them funny and entertaining. Most people, excluding the Teachers, boring nerds, our lovely Head Girl and of course, Fred Weasley.

"Glasses! Oi, glasses!" He yelled over the crowd of students making their way to their classes, a day after Flitwick's talk. I was trying to shove my way through a bunch of Hufflepuffs, but being 4"11 I wasn't that tall or powerful and was not making much headway.

Yeah, my stature did not match the reputation I had around this place. Someone said 'terrifying genius who could out-prank anyone', and you'd expect some tall, wickedly beautiful girl, or maybe a dragon or something- but instead got the tiny, angry, terrible-sighted Ravenclaw instead. Fred caught up with me in a few easy strides and I gritted my teeth.   
"What do you want, Weasley?" I snapped, that usual ball of anger in my stomach spiking whenever he got within three feet of me. Fred gave one of the Hufflepuff boys a nudge and the group parted, giving me a clear path down the corridor. It only made me angrier that it took Weasley to get them to move- the students were being really petty now I'd 'retired' from my usual pranks. He smirked at my expression and I strode on, hoping that he'd leave me alone.   
"It's been a week since my prank on your dorm, what gives?" He asked, and I rolled my eyes and tried to hurry away from him. Unluckily for me he was freakishly tall and had much longer legs to keep up with me. I was nearly jogging and he wandering leisurely and it really wasn't fair.   
"I told you, I don't do that anymore," I huffed for probably the third time that week, and he frowned.   
"Yeah, but why? You'd have gotten me back by now. Are you bowing down to my superior pranks?"   
"Your prank was weak like all your comebacks, Freddie-poo. I don't have to explain myself to you," I told him sharply, and eventually he stopped bloody following me and let me get to Charms. Why did he care that I hadn't pranked him back? Why would he want me to? The guy was crazy. I thought after seven years of my ruthless pranks he'd be happy for a respite. I never did anything by half, and he had received his fair share of humiliation at my hands.

  "Late again, Miss May; I hope this isn't becoming another trend- you've been doing so well," Old Professor Flitwick greeted as I entered the classroom, dumping my bag by my desk and sitting down next to Ava Wood, one of my closest friends and dorm-mates. She smiled in greeting and I returned it weakly.   
"No sir," I replied.   
"Good," He said. "Now turn to page two hundred and seven."  
I did so lethargically, my late night catching up to me the moment I wasn't rushing around the corridors trying to get away from Fred. The blonde beside me kept shooting me worried glances, nudging me whenever I threatened to doze off.   
"You okay Jen? You didn't come up to bed last night," She whispered as Flitwick talked about the wand work involved in producing different charms. It was a subject I had no problem with, so zoning out was just fine by me, and I turned to her. Ava's dark eyes had been full of worry a lot recently, since we came back, and I hated that it was me causing it. I sighed. She knew me too well to believe any lie I told no matter how good I was at telling them, we'd known each other since we were kids.   
"Yeah, I was just working. Nothing to worry about," I reassured her, lying anyway because I couldn't help it. Ava probably thought that it _was_ something to worry about, and I could see on her face that she wasn't convinced. I tapped my quill on the desk and wondered when the bloody lesson would end.

 "Are you going to your lab again?" Dom asked suddenly, as I prepared to depart from the Great Hall during dinner. The two blondes were staring at me, Dom with her silvery grey eyes and Ava with her brown ones, both filled with deep suspicion. The double team from the blondes was not unexpected, but not exactly welcome because I always gave into them and they knew it, constantly using it against me. It was a tactic they'd been using on me for years and I still hadn't figured out how to stop falling for it.   
"I- how did you know about that?" I demanded. They smirked, terrifyingly in sync.   
"You talk in your sleep," Ava told me, and I pushed my glasses up my nose in defeat and a touch of embarrassment. They'd probably known about the lab for years and just waited for a perfect time to use it against me.   
"Yeah, I'm going to my lab. What of it?" I inquired, going for aloof. Dom leaned over the table curiously. I'd known her for as long as I'd known Ava; since her family were famous Quidditch nuts, Ava's father was a Quidditch player and mine was the Head of the international magical sports department, we'd met years ago during many a Quidditch match, Ministry shindig and other formal gathering that bored the hell out of me. These girls were my partners in crime and absolute life-savers when it came to boring Ministry parties. Since we were old enough to walk and talk, we'd been walking and talking with each other, and knew far too much about each other than was strictly necessary.   
"What are you doing in there? We found a notebook full of stuff in your pillowcase-"   
"Will you two ever stop rooting through my stuff?" I groaned, sitting back down at the Ravenclaw table as the blondes produced the battered old book, which I snatched out of their hands. No one else can see that! Were they mad? If anyone got their hands on that- well let’s just say the contents weren't all compliant with the many Hogwarts rules. Or the Ministry ones for that matter. If the teachers got even a whiff of it, I'd be in big trouble.   
"Nope! It’s what we do!" Dom sung, and I rolled my eyes. Damn nosy girls. I should not be as fond of them as I am.   
"You're like the younger sisters I never wanted," I grumbled, and the pair grinned.   
"Well actually I'm older, so I'm like the older sister you never-" Dom began, but Ava gave her a sharp look and my eyes went table-ward, and she shut her mouth with a hasty click. A stab of something shot through my chest like a knife, but I brushed it off, looking back up and pretending that the innocent comment hadn't hurt like a physical blow. Dom had gone wide-eyed and a look of shame settled on her face, whilst Ava looked between us nervously.   
"Sorry Jenna I wasn't thinking-" Dom tried, but I held a hand up.   
"It’s okay," I said, even though it wasn't. I smiled and Ava was giving me a look that said that she saw right through it. She was about to hit me with the feelings, and I was all for avoiding that. I didn't do _feelings_. Not on the outside.

Not during dinner.

"Well I better go, work to do-"   
"No you don't," Dom said, grabbing the back of my skirt as I tried to make a break for it. She tugged me back down into my seat and I yelped. Did she me want to flash the whole table? I scowled.   
"What?" I snapped. She raised one perfect eyebrow and I resisted the urge to nervously push up my glasses.  
"You're not okay. We're all worried about you Jen, and its fine to tell everyone else you're fine, but not us. So either you talk to us, or we follow you to your lab. Your call." Damn that girl, she knew me too well. I scowled.   
"What's to say? My sister is in Mungo's, my dad told me I was a disappointment, the usual-"   
"He what?! Jenna why didn't you say anything?" Ava demanded. I shrugged, trying not to come across as upset by my Dad's and my many arguments. They'd only been getting worse since the news about Naomi, and I'd low-key been expecting it, but it still stung. My Dad and I were far too similar to get along, I knew that. Ever since Mum, our relationship had been doomed.   
"It wasn't important. You know my Dad loves Naomi, he couldn't take it when she was diagnosed. Her getting worse just pushed him over the edge and my stint at the British Quidditch cup didn't help," I sighed, and to my dismay, Dom snickered into her hands. She calmed after a moment, and had the decency to look ashamed once she caught sight of my expression.   
"It was funny, The Harpies weren't expecting the Quaffle to start screaming- but they were alright with it- found it hilarious in fact, even gave us tickets to their next game! Gwenog even came over to ask you how you got into the ball chest to do it, the security around it was tight. Your dad needs to chill out, Jen, he was out of order saying that to you," She told me, and I looked down at my half empty plate. I hadn't really felt like eating lately, as I was intent on finishing my extra-curricular project as fast as possible.

I wanted to tell Dom and Ava what I was working on, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. This was something private that I had to do, the biggest challenge I'd taken on in my life, and believe me, I did not go halves when I wanted to make something. It had started as a crazy dream after Mum died, no doubt they'd think it was impossible to cure her illness when Healers and Potion Makers had been trying for years to come up with a cure or even a more effective treatment. I couldn't tell them what I was doing because I was afraid they'd give me that look that said I was doomed to fail. That I had finally gone crazy.

I mean I'd been tugging on the crazy string for years with my inventions, but I knew when to toe the line. Mostly.

"Jen, you and your Dad- well you haven't got on since your Mum died. If you want to stay at mine during the holidays again, you're always welcome, my lot love you," Ava offered, reaching across the table to pat my hand. I felt that awful hitch that came just before ugly crying and tried to keep the tears at bay, sliding my hand away slowly. Ava sighed.   
"Naomi doesn't know how bad it is, I don't want to...make this any harder on her," I mumbled.   
"Your Dad is a dick, you can live with me too- My parents have already practically adopted you, you have your own bed," Dom told me, and Ava nodded- I had my own bed at her house too. I sighed. He'd said a lot of awful things to me since Mum died and I took up chaos causing as a hobby to deal with it, but deep down I knew that he didn't mean them. It wasn't like I'd been the golden child who didn't cause him any grief. In fact I'd been such a handful that it was no wonder he was so angry with me all the time. The amount of times he had to cover up something illegal wasn't even funny anymore, and since he worked at the Ministry it was hard to hide everything from him. 

"I'm gonna go, as I said, lots of work to do" I told them quietly. They both nodded, trying to be understanding, and, as usual, I thanked Merlin that these two had come into my life.  
"When you're ready, you can tell us what you're trying to do, Jenna. You can always talk to us," Ava said, and I smiled, hugging them both across the table.   
"I know," I replied, letting them go and heading out of the hall, hurrying in case anyone saw the tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks. I hurried up a few floors toward the one place where a girl could hide illegal experiments and potions and stolen Quidditch supplies, pacing in front of the blank wall breathlessly, thinking of my home away from home.


	2. All aboard the second chapter train!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 is here. Enjoy!

My lab had begun as a small room where I practiced magic, back when I was a little firstie in need of a place to go; I wanted to get things right, impress teachers, learn new spells faster than anyone else and make sure my wand-work matched my immaculately written essays and broad knowledge on topics we were studying.

Yeah, I was once one of _those_ kids. Blegh.

Eventually I started making things in here, and the lab expanded, became less 'practice room' and more actual lab. There were shelves full of inventions around the room, sorted into categories like 'destructive', 'needs work', 'edible', and 'improvements'. I liked the more practical inventions I had come up with, like the glass ball that filled with light whenever you needed it in dark places- it worked through Peruvian instant darkness powder, and it could serve as a very weak Patronus charm to repel Dementors long enough for you to get away if you smashed it. I was planning to mass produce that one out of Hogwarts, offering it to the Ministry for their Aurors. I had smuggled in numerous substances to work with, I had more Whomping willow plants in case the teachers managed to get rid of the replacement I'd supplied, and I even had Pheonix ash, after a weird obsession with trying to figure out how to make more things come back after they'd been set on fire. I kept a small vial of pheonix tears, which took me months to procure, in a very secret location; one that I wouldn't tell anyone. The blondes wouldn’t discover its location in my journals either. Nosy cows.

My Dad had thankfully not heard about any of it since he worked in the international magical sports department and not any place that dealt with teenagers that toed the line- he would've been livid to know I was making things instead of doing assigned work. I was in his bad books for months when he found out I'd become an Animagus without telling anyone; he'd caught me sneaking into Mungo's to visit Mum nearly a year after I'd managed it and forced me to be registered, though the officials who were filling out the paperwork had been more impressed that a twelve year old had managed such a feat alone then angry that I'd illegally done it. The life of a genius has its perks.

"Hey Manny; how's the stuff doing?" I asked, as a suit of armour came clanking toward me the moment I entered my lab. The Staff had searched the castle for weeks when the suit of armour on the Sixth floor went missing, and to this day they had no idea I'd stolen It and tweaked it until it could communicate, drink potions and test random experiments. I'd drawn a smiley face on his metal visor, which was slightly dented after an accident involving a life-sized chess horse and a few explosions. The suit of armour creaked a few times, a code of sorts, and he reassured me that it was all fine. I hurried to the middle of the lab, where a cauldron was simmering away, and a desk covered in notes and books and ingredients sat waiting for me.

"It should be green by now..." I murmured, hovering over the purple potion worriedly, thinking rapidly about what I could put in it to fix it. Many times I had considered using a bezoar, but then it only cured poisons, and as this was an illness and not a poison it wouldn't really help. I rifled through the notes and documents and books that were scattered across the desk, reading through the letters that healers across the world had sent me about this matter. I had inquired about research they'd been doing as a student who wished to be a healer and not someone attempting to make a cure on their own, but many institutes across the globe stated that a cure was simply not being searched for at the current time, as there was no funding and there was no new results that could lead them to success. Some healers had sent me small amounts of what they knew of previous attempts at finding a cure or a treatment to the magical sickness. They couldn't give much away to a sixteen year old girl, but whatever; I worked with what I have.

"Right, let’s try some Ginger root, that usually does the trick," I muttered to myself, grabbing the ingredient and chopping it up roughly, tossing it in the potion and stirring. The solution went from purple to lime green, and I let it simmer, smiling widely.

"Now if I add honey water it should go a yellowish colour, and then- NO!"

The cauldron had begun to hiss madly and I dived for it, trying to fix it as best I could, but the potion was curdling, burning out, and no matter how much I stirred or added to it there was no saving it. It boiled into nothing and I let out a yell.

" _Why_?!" I screamed, kicking the cauldron as hard as I could and throwing the ladle after it, not even flinching as they crashed into a nearby table with a loud clang. Manny the knight started forward to pick it up.

"DON'T YOU DARE!"

He tottered away, and I began pacing. It was going so well, that potion had been a month in the making and it had been ruined in the space of half an hour. What was I doing wrong? How could that have happened? I'd been working on it every night since I got back to the castle, sleeping less just to make sure it was going the way it should. There had been more attempts at home, but they hadn't come this far, I hadn’t been as attached to them as I had this one.

I knew I was crying, but there was just so much rage fuelling me that I hardly even noticed until my vision was blurred and there were no more things in reach to kick at, so I was left with an empty feeling of failure and wet cheeks beneath my glasses. I tore through my lab and sat down on the small armchair that I frequently fell asleep in after a long day tinkering with things. There was a small table beside it with a photo on top in a simple silver frame, the five people in it laughing silently and hugging each other tight. My Parents, me and my older sister Naomi when we were younger and my big brother, the eldest, Ben; I was twelve when it was taken and hugging Mum around the shoulders, who was sat on a chair and looking at us rather than the camera. Naomi was nearly sixteen and she and Dad were hugging each other, grinning at the camera identically- Ben was twenty and stood behind me, a hand on Mum's shoulder, smiling widely and looking like a mix between us all.

Naomi was always a daddy's girl, whilst I was Mum's carbon copy and Ben mediated between the two. It was Mum's nearly-black eyes I'd inherited, her thick dark hair that fell in waves, the need for glasses and the tiny height had all come from her. Once I saw a picture of her when she was seventeen and truly believed it was me before I realised that never in my life had I worn flares or horn-rimmed glasses. Mine were big and nerdy, but that was In now. According to Naomi, that picture of Mum when she was younger lived on Dad's desk in the study at home, the one we weren't allowed in- well, I wasn't allowed in for very reasonable reasons. Cough, reading through private Ministry matters, Cough.

I watched my family in the picture sadly, remembering when it was taken; we had them done every year since Ben was born, Mum had made an album of them. There were no more pictures since she died, and I kept this one, our last photo- she had passed around six months later. Not long after that Ben moved away, travelling with his work, and I hadn't seen him since. We kept in touch through letters, and he was somewhere in China now, but he too had clashed with Dad after Mum died. At times like this I realised that I missed him terribly, that he was now twenty five and from pictures he'd sent he no longer looked like an awkward not-teenager that I knew but a grown adult who hadn’t come home in four years. I hoped when he finds out that Nomi is ill he'd visit us.

 

I didn't remember falling asleep, but I woke some time in the early morning, the marble cockerel I'd found making a right racket from one of the shelves as it somehow knew it was morning or sunrise or whatever cockerels start wailing at. I threw a stray quaffle at it. It shut up with a squawk.

I dragged myself from the chair, limbs aching from being crushed all night and my neck twinging horribly, and I left the lab. No one was up at this time so sneaking around wasn’t necessary, and it was nice to walk through a quiet castle. It was terribly dark, as it was October, but I knew where I was going, and nothing jumped out at me on the way.

"What word contains three double letters in a row?" The eagle asked sleepily when I knocked on the tower door, and I groaned. I was clever, but riddles at this time were the worst. It took me a good five minutes to think through all the words I knew to figure it out, but eventually I got there.

"Bookkeeper," I told the door, and it opened, letting me in. I crossed the common room with its breath taking views and comfy chairs, artwork and poems and a cork board full of theories by students everywhere and headed for my dorm, sneaking inside and trying not to disturb Dom as I passed her bed. I was quite pleased that she wasn't as intimidatingly beautiful sleeping as she was awake, but she looked adorable all wrapped up in her covers, blonde hair haloing her head. I wriggled out of my robes and climbed into bed, hoping for a few more hours sleep before breakfast.

 

"Jenna, wake up sleeping beauty, all the bacon will be gone!" Ava sing-songed down my ear a while later and I groaned, trying to tug my covers over my head to block her out. Due to odd numbers, a few ill-received pranks and some clashing a few years back, we were only a dorm of three, which meant that Ava was quite safe to start yelling in the early morning, much to my chargin. I wish Clemence was still here. She'd been amazing at getting the girls to shut up. Pity she'd gone back to France and abandoned me to rude wake-up calls.

"Oh no you don't young lady, you barely ate any dinner, you're not skipping breakfast. Up. Now," Dom commanded, and the covers were pulled away, the sudden cold making me shiver and curl up into a ball instinctively.

"I hate you," I complained into my pillow. Dom tugged my arm until I was in a sitting position and then shoved my glasses onto my face, nearly taking my eye out with her bad aim- quaffes she could do, glasses she could not. I whined but she was immune to my tired pleading, Mum-mode fully activated.

"Love you too, now sort out that rat's nest on your head and meet us downstairs."

I glared as she and Ava left the dorm, before grabbing my wand and marching into the bathroom. My reflection was tired, my dark hair was indeed a rat's nest, and I knew that I had been restless- the last traces of dreams I had had were still in my head, and I scowled at my reflection. I sorted myself out, put on some make-up to hide the tired lines and traces of crying (bless Dom and Ava for not pointing that out), got dressed and deemed myself acceptable before meeting the blondes downstairs.

"Finally- did you get any sleep last night?" Ava asked curiously, she and Dom linking my arms as we made our way out of the common room, and I shrugged.

"A few hours. What? You know I can run on less sleep than normal people," I replied, and that was true; they learned that lesson in first year that I usually got four hours sleep to their eight, and I functioned just as well as any human being. Sleep just wasn't really my thing, not when there was work to be done.

"Yeah, but none at all? Seriously Jenna, you need an intervention. We have a free period today, and you're going to take a power nap whilst we do some work for a change."

"But what about revising-"

"Don't give me that bullshit Lady," Dom said seriously, and I sulked like a petulant teenager. "You're top of the year in exams and for the past six years you've never opened a single textbook, you don't need to bloody revise."

My talent for passing exams had been remarked upon by many; I rarely attended classes, hardly scraped good marks on homework, but by the end of the year my exam grades would be in the very top percentile of gifted students. I used to go over the material alone and do it that way, but lately I just hadn't had time to look at the modules we'd been learning, and there were so many difficult things going on this year school-wise that I worried that even I wouldn't pass this time around. Hopefully I can catch up, and then the teachers will be relieved, Nomi lives- everybody is happy

Well, I will be happy once it’s all over and I can get a reasonable amount of sleep, but I could sacrifice being well-rested so Nomi had a good chance of recovering. And who ever said I was a cold-hearted person?


End file.
